Elizabeth Sulzby Improves Instruction
In Savage Inequalities and Amazing Grace, author and activist Jonathan Kozol
depicted impoverished children in the Bronx borough of New York City. In September
2003, SOE Professor Elizabeth
Sulzby and teacher education and outreach staff
member Deanna Birdyshaw began 3 years of research, professional development,
and classroom support in the South Bronx, traveling those same streets. Supported
by funds from an Early Reading First grant, available through NCLB, at the
invitation of district leaders, Sulzby and Birdyshaw work in seven of the lowest
performing schools in New York City and the nation. 64% of the children in
these schools are Latino; 34% are African American, and at least 95% are on
free lunch. The purpose of the grant is to help preschool teachers learn how
to expand children’s oral language and basic understandings of reading
and writing using Sulzby’s Kindergarten Literature Program (KLP), a research-based
program for preschool/Head Start and kindergarten classrooms.
Sulzby says, “The professional development sessions and support provided to teachers in their classrooms put into practice a simple but profound set of activities, and support teachers as they learn to recognize, respect, and understand child literacy development. Teachers collaborate to select interesting books, easy for little hands and fingers to open and page through. They learn to read engagingly to young children, reading the books over and over, just as loving parents and relatives often do in their homes.” Based on Sulzby’s research in emergent reading and writing, they engage the students in deep discussions of ideas in each book and topics that con-nect across the books and also invite the children to “read your own way.” Teachers also invite children to “get your idea for what you want to write about,” discuss their ideas, and then write using forms seeming to imitate writing that their teachers, parents, and other adults do. Teachers and parents in the community are becoming aware that children’s scribbles, drawings, and strings of letters can stand for meaningful stories and messages and that children will “read” from them. Teachers are also learning how to measure, with validity and reliability, children’s progress toward learning how to read and write in conventional ways, based on their learnings in preschool. Sulzby and Birdyshaw are seeking additional research funding to further test and document the work in the Bronx. Sulzby says, “In addition to having a chance to work with a great colleague and friend, this project pulls together work I have done with low income, African-American and Latino children and their teachers in Michigan, Illinois, and other parts of the country.”
This article appears in the Fall 2004 edition of Innovator.
